Science Literature

Just when you thought there was little innovative thinking about the origin of religion, along comes an anthropologist to prove you wrong! My initial reaction on reading Maurice Bloch's new paper was to think: "How refreshing!" At last, here is someone who can see the emptiness of evolutionary explanations for the origin of religion. Here is a taster of his objections to this particular genre of evolutionary story-telling:

"The third problem with such theories is that they explain religion as a product of core knowledge or modular capacities, such as naive physics, number, naive biology and naive psychology, all of which, with the possible exception of the last, we share with all our anthropoid relatives. Such a proposal is therefore unconvincing simply because no other animal than humans manifests any behaviour that is remotely like what is usually called religion."

Furthermore, when the academic world and the media latch on to any hint of similarity between apes and humans, it is almost a relief to find someone recognising that there are major discontinuities. Contrast this write-up of Ape Genius with Bloch:

"Chimpanzees do not have anything which remotely resembles the many and varied phenomena that have been labelled religion in anthropology. Indeed, this was probably also true of early sapiens. But, more importantly, there is also something else that chimpanzees, and probably early sapiens, do not have. This is social roles or social groups, understood in one particular sense of the word social."

There is a twist to Lennon's song (and to Dawkins' polemic) - you can't both imagine and do away with religion! (For larger image, go here)

There are two key words in Bloch's paper: transactional and transcendental. Transactional behaviour relates to the moulding of roles and groups by "a process of continual manipulation, assertions and defeats". This is found in chimpanzee social organisation and it is found also among humans. Transcendental behaviour, however, consists of essentialized roles and groups. "Essentialized roles exist separately from the individual who holds them. Rights and duties apply to the role and not to the individual." Bloch has a striking illustration of this from the life of a Malagasy village elder known to him for a long time.

"By now, he is old, physically weak and a little bit senile. He has difficulty in recognizing people. He spends most of his days in a foetal position wrapped up in a blanket. Yet he is treated with continual deference, consideration, respect and even fear. Whenever there is a ritual to be performed, he has to be put in charge so that he can bless the participants. When he is treated with great respect he is being behaved to, and he accordingly behaves towards others as a transcendental elder. This does not mean, however, that he is not also within the transactional social system. While as a transcendental elder he is little different to what he was when he was in his prime several years ago, as a transactional player he has lost out completely in the machiavellian game of influence, and nobody takes much note of him anymore or of his opinions since in the continual power play of daily life he has become insignificant."

By comparison, chimpanzee sociality is purely transactional. "[T]he transcendental social does not exist among the chimpanzees." The human sense of the transcendental is presented as the key to understanding religion.

"The transcendental network can with no problem include the dead, ancestors and gods as well as living role holders and members of essentialized groups. Ancestors and gods are compatible with living elders or members of nations because all are equally mysterious invisible, in other words transcendental."

Given the sense of transcendence, religion is not something extra, needing an explanation in its own right, but it is an expression of a central human characteristic, deeply affecting many other cultural behaviours. Those who present religion as a superstition, a delusion or a virus of the mind are making a category mistake. Richard Dawkins and his unhappy band of atheist zealots are out of their depth when they indulge in their polemics. They are missing something of fundamental importance to being human.

Given this sense of transcendence, religion is not a phenomenon that needs to be explained. "Once we realize this omnipresence of the imaginary in the everyday, nothing special is left to explain concerning religion." But it is necessary to explain our sense of transcendence. Where does this come from?

"What needs to be explained is the much more general question, how it is that we can act so much of the time towards visible people in terms of their invisible halo. The tool for this fundamental operation is the capacity for imagination. It is while searching for neurological evidence for the development of this capacity and of its social implications that we, in passing, will account for religious-like phenomena."

It is at this point that Bloch seems to restrict the nature of the enquiry. Is this investigation bounded by the dictates of naturalism, or can avenues of enquiry related to design be explored? If the sense of transcendence is really something special, why rule out lines of enquiry that take us beyond materialism? We are here touching on the related issue of consciousness: is that a matter of neuronal activity only? Science may not be able to answer all our questions, but there is absolutely no reason (apart from insisting on a dogma) for denying the right to ask them in academia.

Why religion is nothing special but is central
Maurice Bloch
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Firstcite, 21 February 2008 | DOI:10.1098/rstb.2008.0007

Abstract: It is proposed that explaining religion in evolutionary terms is a misleading enterprise because religion is an indissoluble part of a unique aspect of human social organization. Theoretical and empirical research should focus on what differentiates human sociality from that of other primates, i.e. the fact that members of society often act towards each other in terms of essentialized roles and groups. These have a phenomenological existence that is not based on everyday empirical monitoring but on imagined statuses and communities, such as clans or nations. The neurological basis for this type of social, which includes religion, will therefore depend on the development of imagination. It is suggested that such a development of imagination occurred at about the time of the Upper Palaeolithic 'revolution'.

Coghlan, A. Religion a figment of human imagination, NewScientist.com (28 April 2008)